In our last blog written on June 10, 2020 I described how we, after a long wait were allowed to enter Guatemala. So, it is a long time ago that I wrote a blog. The reason for this big gap is that after we returned in Guatemala we came in more relaxed state of mind after living for 4 months in uncertainty what to do with the boat in the approaching hurricane season. The Rio Dulce in Guatemala is the most safest hurricane location to store our boat in the entire Caribbean and RAM Marina is for us the best; it is like coming home and putting ourselves in the care of our daughter Karen, the manager of the marina. We knew that we could fly back to the USA and that we have a beautiful new home waiting for us in Texas.

The first 2 weeks in Guatemala we were in quarantine with the boat in a Mediterranean mooring 6 feet from the pier and no access to land. Mediterranean mooring, also known as “med mooring”, is a technique for mooring a vessel to a pier at a perpendicular angle. The ship thus occupies less space as it is connected to a fixed length of pier along the width rather than its length. This mooring gives you no privacy since there is only a foot separation between boats. We expected that we would have to be on anchor in an isolated area in the Rio Dulce Golfette and we had for over 3 weeks of food and other necessities on board. We did not need a lot of help, but the marina staff was the entire day available to help us and supply us with whatever we needed. The health authorities came to check on us on a regular basis and that could only be accomplished by us hanging from the back of the boat and the nurse reaching as far as possible from the pier. It was every time a hilarious event.
There was a lot of confusion what would happen at the end of the quarantine time. We knew that we had to be checked and get a certification of health before we could leave the boat. We waited the entire morning and no health authorities. In the late afternoon Karen, de marina manager took both Dorothy and me together with our neighbors Sabrina and Tom from s/v Honey Rider by car to the health clinic in town and we received the certificate of health and could move to a normal location in the marina. Some people were disturbed by this special service, but what can you say when your daughter is in charge.

We moved to our typical and favorite spot opposite the fuel dock and started to prepare the boat for the “Hard”. Going the hard means that the boat gets hauled out of the water and put on stands. We installed the window A/C and the humidifier which both can be used on the hard. We ordered some repairs jobs and installations. The biggest one was the replacement of our awning which covers the entire boat. We took the sails down, cleaned the boat and stored many items inside. We topped off the diesel fuel tank and polished the fuel with a system we purchased last year after a lot of problems with contaminated fuel and a dirty tank.
The past years we were experiencing problems with the electricity on board. We had an indirect lightning strike and many items started to give problems. During our stay in Belize the wind generator began to make a lot of noise and produced only limited power for the batteries. We shut it down and ordered a new one. However, the biggest problem is that we are losing a lot of voltage in our wires from the battery to the equipment on board. When we return to the boat some time in the autumn I intend to replace all the wiring and install new switch and breaker panels. This is a very big job and there is a lot of money needed for the materials, but nothing is cheap on an offshore sailing vessel. I started the job before we put the boat on the hard to get an inventory of what we need to buy in the USA and take back to the boat.

We stayed in the water as long as possible so we could use our own shower and bathroom facilities instead of the public marina facilities. When we went on the hard we rented a room with private bathroom in one of the cabanas in RAM Marina and this made it also more convenient to organize and clean the boat on the inside.

We left on July 7, 2020 to Guatemala City to catch the next day the repatriation flight back to the USA. Since no public transportation was available we made the trip by taxi. The taxi driver needed to be back the same day in the Rio Dulce before the curfew time of 6:00PM. The taxi picked us up 15 minutes after the end of the morning curfew time of 5:00AM. The trip was different as we were used to, very light traffic and no buses on the road and we made it in less than 6 hours. We arrived in the hotel in Guatemala City at 10:00AM and since we were the only guests in the hotel we could check in and get our room. Driving through the city was weird, the normally very crowded and busy city was nearly empty. Restaurants were closed and only outside pick-up was allowed. In the hotel we could eat our picked-up food in the empty unused restaurant which made it convenient. The hotel has a “Beauty Salon” which was closed, but the lady of the reception desk (the only employee in the hotel) called a stylist who arrived an hour later and she did Dorothy’s hair.

The next day the hotel paid Uber drove us to the nearly empty airport, with about 100 passengers for the morning flight to “New Jersey” and about 50 passengers for the “Houston” flight. After the New Jersey flight left it was very empty in the airport. The only flights that could leave are so called “repatriation flights” with special permission from the government of Guatemala and these fights arrive empty from the USA. Arriving in Houston was special again since the normal very busy airport was very quiet. The other special ‘event’ was that the security dog in the arrival hall smelled our half-eaten salami sandwich and after a serious reprimand we were sent to the special customs desk where the remainder of our food was confiscated.

Our daughter Dominique and our granddaughters Kristin and Katelynn picked us up from the airport and drove us home to our new house where we lived for 4 months last year. It was great to be home, but we needed to get used to the new world of Covid-19 Virus. We planned to play it safe and did not visit people or invite people including our family. After a couple of weeks, we started to relax a little and now we are still careful but live our normal lives. At 4:50AM I go to the swimming pool in the New Braunfels City Recreation facility called “DAS Recreation Center”. When I return we drink a cup of tea with a slice of raisin bread and we make an intensive 4 miles walk in our neighborhood. We signed up for private Latin American Dance lessons and two times a week we dance with our very young 18-year-old beautiful dance instructor Sarah.

My first project was to complete the construction of our patio on the backside of the house and put some nice partly self-made furniture there. We planted 3 Italian Cyprus Trees in the back yard and filled the nice flowerpots that our friends Kitty and Kurt brought for us from Mexico with flowering plants.
When I was working in the garage on our patio furniture an older gentleman stopped and ask me if I could restore an antique rocking chair which was made by his wife’s grandfather. After some hesitations I told him to bring the chair and I would see if I could do this job. Long story short I am now already for a month working every day a couple of hours on this chair and have a great time doing it.

We have a large window above our front door which we did not like. We asked a stained-glass designer to design for us a window with a sailboat feature. After some line designs he created a color design that we liked a lot and he created a wonderful stained-glass window and installed it for us. See our album for the pictures.

We have a long list of parts we need for our boat and items that need to be repaired. We visited a shop in Kemah for the items for the water maker and the repair of other parts. It is unbelievable but after 2 months’ waiting we still do not have the things we need new and/or repaired. The virus is the typical excuse given for these issues, but for us it is hard to believe. We live in a small new neighborhood with only custom build homes. At this moment 5 of these homes are under construction and we see daily how the hardworking people are doing their job. I talk a lot with these people and it is good to practice my Mexican Spanish.

Coming back to the USA always includes doctor visits. I needed to have some checkup about conditions and development that last year became an issue during my yearly checkup. Fortunately, everything was fine and I only need to return for another checkup next year. Despite a lot of pain treatments last year for my neck issue with very limited neck movement and a lot of pain the problem only became worse and there was no treatment available. My son advised me to take “Glucosamine with Chondroitin” capsules and to my big surprise these have reduced the pain and gave me a lot of mobility again. I had to see two eye doctors, one for a regular checkup of my corneal transplant and a retina specialist for surgical removal of a wrinkle on the retina of my left eye. The surgery went well, but as a side effect due the glaucoma tubes in my eye I lost all the pressure. This is a dangerous condition and although I use stronger eye drops than usual the pressure is not coming back yet.

Up to today it was a very active hurricane season this year and the suffering of people and destruction of property some of the hurricanes caused became personal for us. Before we knew that the Government of Guatemala allowed us to enter the country one of our options called “Plan B” was to store our boat in “The Reserve Marina” in Sapodilla Bay in Belize. It was and expensive option since we had to pay our Boat Insurance an additional premium of $1,950.00 to leave the boat there. In hindsight it was a good choice to not use this option since hurricane “Nana” hit Belize as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph with its center close to the lagoon and the marina. Buildings at the marina were destroyed and one boat sank.

Tropical Storm Beta coursed major flooding in Houston again which delayed the repair and delivery of some parts in marine repair facilities in Kemah. Friends of us have their home base in Louisiana and the area where they live was hit by Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 storm, and tied with the 1856 “Last Island” hurricane as the strongest storm to make landfall in Louisiana.

Hurricane Teddy brought tropical storm strength winds and 30+ foot waves to Bermuda and friends of us who are from Bermuda sent us pictures and a video how the waves came on land and flooded their swimming pool and backyard. Hurricane Paulette made landfall in Bermuda as a Category 2 hurricane but luckily caused only minor damage.

With the Presidential elections coming close, our county becomes more and more a banana republic. It started in 2016 when we started to discredit the outcome of the elections and the status now is that the outcome of a future election is already discredited. Riots in the street are called peaceful protests, while peaceful protests are disturbed by rioters and sometimes armed rioters. The irresponsible and sometimes criminal behavior of a few police officers is now a reason to ask for defunding of police departments in large cities. Respect for opposite opinions are gone and if you express your opinion you are a socialist/communist or on the other side a racist. The most extreme example of this idiotic society is the call by the speaker of the House of Representatives to have an Impeachment of the President one month before the Presidential elections. Our system of our country is based on a form of the “Separation of Powers with Executive, Legislative and Judicial independent branches. Since the early 70th this system in not working anymore since the Judicial Independence is gone with judges who are representatives of political parties and ridiculous and disgusting accusations are now the most important part of the conformation process of judges.

It becomes very urgent and important to us to leave and go back to our boat where we can live a normal life and we hope we can leave soon.